It's not necessarily the cold but the wind and freeze thaw cycles that kill the roses. Overwintering your potted roses in a dard unheated garage or shed will protect them. Tender roses will still experience dieback and the soil ball will freeze solid but your roses should survive OK. Did you mean tea roses or hybrid tea roses? There is an important difference. To avoid confusing us, please use the proper term so we don't have to clairify which you're talking about. If you like floribundas, by all means use them. Choose a variety that doesn't get too big or you'll require a very large pot that'll be really heavy to move into the garage. Smaller shrub roses, polyanthas, minifloras, and miniatures all make good potted plants. Water is important as many overwintered potted roses are lost to drying out. A shovel full of snow occasionally will suffice. Just don't let the soil dry out completely. I use potting soil. I like Miracle Grow or WalMart's Expert Gardener brand. The Expert Gardener has a lot of large pieces of organic material and small wood chips in it while the Miracle Grow potting soil is lighter with lots of peat moss. Both contain a slow release fertilizer so additional fertilizers are not required although I will, on occasion, mix aged horse manure with them. I add nothing for drainage as the bottom pot holes allow plenty of drainage. I water until it drains from the holes, then I know the soil is saturated. Don't use bagged garden soil as it's too heavy and will compact. I don't cut mine back until spring although really tall bushes will be shortened a little to make them easier to handle. I do all my pruning in the spring.

Lynn....... I think you are making the overwintering of these roses too hard. I know you are a planner, but sometimes you just have to wing it. I started my rose life in San Diego and was given the same advice as above. San Diego is also considered to be Rose Heaven. Note the ARS giving that advice in San Diego gave that timing so that the first flush of perfect roses would be ready for the rose shows in early April. It takes about six to seven weeks for a rose once it has set bud to bloom, so if your timing is early April you work back from there. You do not have to follow that timing if you are not worried about having roses ready for a show, but are just growing roses for your garden and don't need perfect roses, but need healthy roses. Cooperative Extensions and Master Gardeners have been parroting the advice given by the local rose societies for more than 60 years. That's because they do not specialize in roses and figure the ARS must know what should be done for their care. In San Diego, we stopped dead heading our roses in October and then began our pruning in December to be completed by Valentine's Day, so that they would be ready to show. My experience and personal opinion is that you stop deadheading in October, allow the rose to set seed and then the rose will go as dormant as nature will allow that rose to go dormant. When we dead head, we are interrupting the plant's natural cycle of getting pollenated and then setting seed, which stimulates the rose to re-bloom. If you don't dead head, the plant will complete it's natural cycle and rest. There is no need for dormant sprays unless you have a serious disease problem or unless you want perfect foliage for a rose show. I believe in leaving the leaves because the rose will abandon them when they no longer perform the function needed for the rose. Studies show that the photosynthesis process stops when temps reach around the 70 degree level. So you can take them off or not. I think they provide a larger mass for the top growth and leaving them on helps protect the canes from the colder temps. Cluster your pots on your patio and surround them with bags of leaves or mulch and stuff the same material in the gaps between the pots to make a bigger mass and to protect the outside pots from the colder temps and to keep the temps within the mass as constant as possible. If you feel you need to protect the top growth from freezing temps, you can cover them just as farmers do with their crops. These are small roses, they don't need to be pruned for the first year except to clean out the rose and shape it. (Note: I don't even shape the rose until it's been in the ground for at least two seasons, but I live where temps get colder.) You want it to grow out of those gallon cans, so you might as well just let it grow. Cutting them back/pruning them when they are small just slows down that process because the roses are storing nutrients in their canes. I now live in a climate with temps lower than you have reported. I over-wintered roses outside for six years in containers before I got them all planted. None of them died. I should have replaced the soil in those pots, but I was too busy digging rose holes in rock. I had to over winter the pots in a totally unprotected yard and I did not go out in the rain or snow to cover them. I also had to maintain those roses in direct sunlight in high temps that lasted for months. The key to my success was the larger mass. Not taking off leaves, spraying or taking off leaves. It kept the temperatures and moisture more consistent. In my best year, I could only get about twenty out of over one hundred roses planted. The only thing you need to do differently than I have done, is to make sure the pots don't dry out while they are resting on the patio. I've been told watering once a month is sufficient, but it doesn't hurt to check and see if you need to do it more often in your climate. Once I got them in the ground, they my roses took off even better than I expected because they finally had a chance to spread their roots. So your choice is to go by the book or wing it. Smiles, Lyn PS ... this rose, 'Kim Rupert', looked horrid in the pot, this is how it looked the first year I got it in the ground.

The first thing to find out is whether or not your garage is insulated. If it's insulated then it's pretty easy. 1. Wait until the temperatures are ~ - 6 C overnight. The next day, take all of the leaves off and water really, really well. 2. Take the rose into the garage and cover with blankets, sleeping bags, whatever. The pot should not be on the floor - but on a piece of wood or something insulating like that. 3. Leave the rose unbothered until about March. Actually I'm not sure how big a 10 gal pot is. With my pots I leave them alone until then. Then I water them with about 1/2 cup of water each month. 4. In the spring, gradually start taking blanket layers off until it's warm enough to take it outside during the day (around +5C). Each night bring it back into the garage (uncovered) until the outside NIGHT temperature is +5C. Then you can leave it outside day and night as long as the nighttime temperatures play nicely. 5. Remember to water really well once they get outside. I overwinter 50 rose bushes this way and have never had a loss. Good luck! Carol

The cold in your zone won't kill the roses. it's being exposed to the dry wind that saps moisture from them that does most damage. My potted roses overwintered in my unheated greenhouse get so hard I can pound a nail with the frozen pot. They're exposed to the light all winter. In late February the buds begin to swell and after pruning in early March they all leaf out. The only plants I keep from freezing are the overwintered rooted cuttings kept in a cold frame. Nothing gets a blanket put on it.